On the 1st of July 1690, William, Prince of Orange, defeated the forces
of James II at the Boyne on the Northern shores of Ireland. The significance
of this event in Irish history does not lie in its military or political
repercussions so much as it does in the religious overtones which were
to echo into the next two and one half centuries of Irish politics. The
conquering of the Catholic King, by his Protestant archrival, was to become
the basis of political, social, and economic separation of an entire population
of Irishmen. Religious differences soon evolved into linguistic differences
and eventually, cultural distinctions. The development of two distinct
traditions, one of Protestant, English and lowland Scottish roots, the
other of Roman Catholic, Gaelic, and Celtic heritage, inevitably led to
conflicts of competing interests in all areas of life. Had these two traditions
been founded on equal footing, the disturbing and violent nature of Irish
history may have been a calmer one. But the reality was an existence of
a Protestant minority with close ties to the British mainland, which has
been endowed with economic and political power over the vast majority
of Catholic Irishmen.

Despite various but feeble attempts, by Catholics, to alleviate this
disparity, throughout the next two hundred and fifty years, the situation
was not to change drastically. However, an avalanche of radical events
was to spark the birth of a move towards equality in the latter half of
the 19th century that would extend to become Irish Nationalism. Perhaps
the most drastic of these changes which were to take place in the northern
counties, Collectively known as Ulster, were changes affecting the economic
status. It was during this period that the area had become heavily industrialized
in relation to the rest of the island. Industrialization had been a result
of the modernization of the linen industry, spawned by the cotton famine
during the American Civil War, and the migration and establishment of
many of the world's largest shipbuilding companies in Belfast. The inevitable
demand for skilled, as well as unskilled, labor allowed for the migration
of poor tenant farmers into northern cities like Belfast and Londonderry
seeking brighter economic prospects. In fact, it was during this period
of relative population decline in Ireland as a whole, that Belfast had
seen astounding growth of over 47%. The establishment of trade unions
and labor organizations was given impetus by mainland labor organizations
and, by this time had become, sufficiently well developed in this region.
Labor politics in the region had manifested itself soon after becoming
closely tied to mainland labor political groups and had developed to levels
comparable to the rest of the United Kingdom by the turn of the century.

However well developed the labor movement had become, and however distinct
the social and economic conditions between Ulster and the rest of Ireland,
in both regions, labor issues were not predominant in Parliamentary politics.
It was the genesis of the Home Rule movement that was to take the Parliamentary
``lime light''. The essence of the Home Rule question had begun in Westminster
as a question of nationalism, which, in Ireland, was to become equated
with religion. This polarization, along these lines, had resulted from
Irish Protestant fears that ``Home Rule meant Rome Rule''. The general
Protestant sentiment was that without the protection of the British Crown,
their religious freedoms would be jeopardized by the Catholic masses.
With an overwhelming majority of the Irish population being Catholic,
Protestant concerns cannot be seen as being without foundation. However,
the movement of Protestants to maintain the Union of the Crown and the
Ireland, was to center primarily in the North. Unlike Ireland as a whole,
in this region's counties, Protestants were often the majority It is upon
this stage that labor politics was to perform its rise and fall during
the end of the 18th and the beginning of the 19th centuries.

To understand the nature of labor politics in Ulster and its attempts
to distance itself from the question of nationalism, one must first understand
the political, social, and economic nature of sectarian divisions in the
region. Without such an understanding much of the political activities
that culminated during this period would seem incomprehensible and unreasonable.
Líam De Paor, a prominent scholar of the Ulster region, describes
the situation in this manner:

In Ulster where industrialisation was more advanced than in any other
part of the country, a development of social revolutionary movements might
have been expected perhaps by the end of the century, but the working
class in Ulster was divided, and the division was fostered and maintained
by middle and upper-class interests. Especially after the revival of Orangeism,
the workers tended to organise in Orange lodges or in the opposing clubs
of the corresponding Catholic organisation .
Organisation of workers into sectarian divisions was prominent in Ireland
as a whole, but Ulster, with its majority Protestant population, had seen
the rise of Orange recruitment in particular. The Orange movement, with
its name taken from William of Orange, was a Protestant organization created
to protect Protestant ideals, and came to represent the maintenance of
the Union. Its popularity had begun to spread rapidly throughout the region
in response to the Catholic push for Home Rule in the late 1880's. While
other regions, particularly Dublin, with its large Protestant population,
had experienced similar growth, Ulster, with its shear size, had taken
the forefront of the movement. However, the diverse nature of Ulster Protestants
prevented the development of a coherent Protestant assembly based upon
the Orange Order. The development of cleavages within the Unionist movement,
as indicated by the internal divisions of the Orange Order, was to play
a critical role between spikes of intense Home Rule activity. It was only
during these times that Unionists could afford to disagree, since in times
of crisis their unity would be necessary to counter the larger Nationalist-Catholic
threat.
The causes of these cleavages complex and varied. They are only discussed
here to provide a backdrop for their impending consequences in labour
politics. The complex nature of the events surrounding the development
of these cleavages have led historians to disagree on this issue. Many
historians have argued the subject from a socialist perspective. These
historians tend to base their analysis on the necessity of an independent
Protestant organization to represent the Protestant working man whose
identity was separate from that of his employer. This type of analysis
is exemplified by this quote:

There were two things [working] men were willing to fight and die for,
religion and politics -- a religion they had not got and a politics they
did not understand.
However, the majority of this type of analysis requires a great deal of
foresight on behalf of historical participants. They imply that independent
leaders understood that they would be forced outside the main stream of
politics while more traditional political organizations adopted their
posture. Other historians have argued the problem along political lines,
describing the formation of independent Protestant organizations as the
product of the coalition of the Liberal and Conservative Unionist factions,
but this argument also presents problems for it does not explain the subsequent
alliance of these organizations with labour. In either case, the fact
that the establishment of an Independent Orange Order in the region was
to come to the aid of labour politics is undisputed. The interesting fact
remains that Ulster Labour had attempted to bond with the Independents,
who were more centerist in their ideology, while its southern counterparts
had aligned itself with radical Nationalist organizations like Sinn Féin.
Explanation for the more moderate stance of Ulster Labour will be provided
in subsequent paragraphs, but here, it serves to emphasize the clear sectarian
differences that can be seen in the politics of Ireland as a whole, and
the distinctive quality of Ulster politics.
For the most part, political and sectarian divisions were one in the same
during each of the Home Rule crises. This is exemplified by the resolution
of the first Home Rule push in 1886, the Ulster and Dublin Protestant
members of Parliament formed a coalition separate from the traditional
Conservative and Liberal parties to maintain the Union. The Ulster Liberal
Party, after much delaying, voted overwhelmingly to reject their mainland
leadership on the 19th of March, 1886, siting Gladstone's support of the
Home Rule movement. The subsequent month they formed the Ulster Liberal
Unionist Committee and vowed to cooperate with Conservatives to defeat
Home Rule. This organization was later to coalesce with its Conservative
counterpart into the Ulster Unionist League. The movement of Liberals
can be seen as a direct response to the need of a Unionist alliance with
British Tories to combat the mainland Liberal and Nationalist alliance.
Although these political organizations were not directly associated with
the Orange Order, they drew a large percentage of their constituency from
them . Their, at times, shaky alliance served to provide the populist
basis for Unionist support during each of the subsequent Home Rule drives.
However, the grouping of these players was to become the focus of Labour's
political rise and subsequent decline during the succeeding years prior
to 1910. With voting blocks coalesced, many who had once voted Liberal
or Conservative, may have been left open to pursuit by Labor, if they
disagreed with either party's Unionism. This factor was to become increasingly
significant with the alliance of the Independent Orange Order and Labour.

Labour Politics was undoubtedly influenced by the economic conditions
of Ulster during this period. By 1881, 44% of Ulster's population was
employed by industry, comprising the largest employed subsection of the
population. This was not the case in Ireland as a whole where only 24%
of the population was employed by Industry. The wages of industrial employees
can be easily separated into two categories: those of skilled workers,
and those of unskilled workers. While wages of skilled workers was comparable
to those in Great Britain as a whole, those of the unskilled worker were
significantly less than that of the their mainland British counterparts.
This had primarily been the result of the lack of organization of unskilled
workers comprised primarily of women in the linen industry, and their
vast supply, drawing from a large group of Catholic migrants from economically
agrarian based counties who were willing to work for low wages. The largest
portion of the work force, women workers of the linen industry, were not
organized until 1910 and even then only represented some 10% of the female
textile workers. This was in contrast to skilled workers in the shipbuilding
and steel industries who had been organised by the 1850's and in large
numbers. By 1901, the population of Belfast, the industrial center of
Ulster, had been approximately 24.1% Catholic while the Catholics, during
this period, never represented more than 12% of the ``skilled'' labour
force (i.e. Engineers, boilermakers, etc.). In contrast, the Catholic
minority represented a majority of the unskilled linen industry (made
up, primarily of women and girls), and 41% of the dockers. The net result
was the creation of labour representation, which had primarily drawn from
skilled unions, that was heavily Protestant in composition. Although heavily
favouring Protestants, its positions on religious issues provide evidence
against the nationalist/socialist principles avowed by Irish contemporaries
of the period such as James Connolly, leader of the southern socialist
movement and a staunch nationalist, who claimed divisions of labour by
religion, which amount to the establishment of a ``labour aristocracy,''
created by Protestant business owners. This more radical view has been
rejected by modern socialists in favour of a view Strauss has adopted:

Although they were not better treated by their masters than the Protestant
workers of Great Britain by theirs, Ulster Protestant workers were in
a privileged position compared with their Catholic competitors. This modest
share of the fruits of colonial conquest was perhaps the strongest tie
between them and their masters.
However the statistics are interpreted, they point to an underrepresentation
of Catholic labourers within the skilled unions which will, in turn, provide
an understanding of the labour hierarchy's policies towards Catholics
and the Home Rule Question.
The development of the Independent Orange Order in 1903 had marked the
final stage of the devolution of a separate, political, Protestant entity,
with Labour support, that was to be independent of Conservative, Liberal,
or traditional Unionist Politics. The rise of the labour politics during
this period had resulted from the ascendency of a new wave of Labour Party
leaders who brought forth a socialist analysis to labour conflicts. This
had been in sharp disparity with the labour leaders of the past decade
who had advocated a conservative alliance in the face of the Home Rule
crisis. The changing of Labour's traditional role in Irish politics from
a passive supporter to an active advocate had come amidst strategic changes
in the political landscape of Ulster. Although historians have argued
in regards to when the shift had occurred, there is a general consensus
that Labour's shift from its traditional conservative political base to
a more radical socialist ideology was sudden (within a decade or so) and
completed by the turn of the century. A more significant disagreement
can be found in the differing characterizations of Labour's position on
the Home Rule issue. Although they are clearly militant in regards to
their stance on questions regarding labour disputes such as unemployment
and poor laws, their stance on sectarian politics in the beginning of
the 1900's does not support the claim made by historians such as Patterson
who characterizes them as ``extremist''. On the contrary, as J.W. Boyle
suggests, their attitude towards sectarian problems advocates a more moderate
stance. Views of their militancy, in sectarian terms, were founded upon
their desire to prevent ``Rome Rule'' without ``Home Rule,'' i.e. giving
concessions to Catholics while avoiding Home Rule. On the surface, this
stance may seem precariously militant, their attitudes towards Catholics
and Home Rule were decidedly mild compared to their Unionist Counterparts.
But this only offers a myopic view of their stance. In fact, Labour had
supported Nationalist candidates with labour views such as Joseph Devlin.
Furthermore, the IOO's Magheramorne Manifesto was supported by Leaders
such as Tom Sloan, who had represented Labour interests. The contrast
of views on the subject can be seen in the following quotes, the first
from the period of traditionalist labour leader Thomas Johnston in 1892:

A good many Roman Catholics seemed to think that if Home Rule were granted
all they would have to do would be to seize upon their neighbor's property.
But the Unionists of Ulster had had to work for what they had, and they
intended to stick to it. ... The Home Rule policy was a policy of plunder
.
while the second is from Labour leader Ramsay McDonald in 1905:
We want to influence the Labour Party here in the direction of socialism
and won't interfere in the Home Rule question until we are compelled --
and then the majority of our members would favour that policy I think.
The sharp difference in policy towards the question of Home Rule can be
attributed to the rise of the socialist Labour leadership which attempted
to distance itself from the issue.
This attitude towards the Home Rule crises ran parallel to the ideology
of the Independent Orange Order. The development of the two institutions
in the late 1800's, share so many aspects that they cannot simply be considered
separately. Every historian referred to by this text has not failed to
emphasize the nature of the interaction between these two organizations
and the political significance in their overlap during the campaign of
Tom Sloan, member of Parliament for the South Belfast constituency. It
is clear that both organizations had developed as a result of the Liberal-Conservative
coalition which had left a constituency of Labour and Nationalists without
representation. The primary reason for this was a shift of the Unionist
policies of the coalition, in response to the threat of Home Rule, towards
militancy, thus leaving moderate Unionists in a political limbo. The alliance
of Labour with the IOO was an attempt to capture the centerist constituency.
The result was to be the formation of strong Labour candidacies, especially
in the Belfast Area where the phenomenon was centered, during the early
1900's.

Tom Sloan became the first candidate to capitalize on the situation in
his 1902 by-election candidacy for the South Belfast MP. His election
was the first sign of support for Independent Orange-Labour support in
Ulster. The events of the preceding year and the resignation of the last
conservative leaders from the Belfast Trade Council allowed him to gain
support from within the council and its political wing, the Independent
Labour Party. Although he was not officially endorsed by the council,
he ran on a platform appealing the ``Protestant Working Man''. His campaign
was decidedly sectarian; Sloan played to an audience of Protestants who
were disillusioned with the concessions of their traditional Conservative
representatives to Catholics, and their opposition to labour legislation.
Because of his public declaration of religious partiality he was not to
be endorsed by the BTC, who, by charter, were obliged not to support a
candidate taking a stand on the issue. It was in fact, his unquestionable
Protestant attitude that was to act as the nemesis for his opponent, the
Conservative-Liberal coalition candidate, C. W. Dunbar-Buller, who was
attacked for his lack of support for ``Protestantism, ... trade unionism,
and in a word he was fighting Protestant Belfast''. Dunbar-Buller was
defeated by a 826 vote majority, a margin of more than 14%. Sloan's campaign
was to become the hallmark to the Independent Labour movement which was
to center around the ILP and its candidates. The end of Conservative-Liberal
domination which began with his victory, was to instigate a series of
attacks upon traditional bastions of Unionist Control. The year following
his election sparked the beginning of the working class revolt of the
old Orange Order led by Lindsay Crawford and the new Independent Orange
Order. In subsequent elections, Sloan was to return to Parliament under
the auspices of the Independent Orange Order and Lindsay Crawford, its
founder. Historians agree that Sloan's success was, at least partly, a
result of his appeal to the working classes and labour issues, but the
degree to which the labour factor had played a significant role is a matter
of debate. Boyle and Clarkson have argued this on socialist lines citing
this factor as the main impetus for voters to chose Sloan. This view is
not held by Patterson, Morgan, or Beckett who have assigned a greater
significance to Sloan's appeal to Protestants as being more Protestant
than his opponent. In some sense, both analyses are flawed in that they
do not adequately explain the results of Labour candidates in similar
elections, particularly in the districts of West Belfast and North Belfast.

Had Sloan's success been simply due to his appeal to the working class's
labour interests, narrow losses by his fellow labour representatives would
be left explained. Clearly, the use of the religious trump card was a
significantly advantageous ploy. The Northern Belfast district election
during the years that followed help to illustrate this point. The ILP
which had been in existence since the early 1890's, had not been able
to put forth a viable candidate for MP until 1905. It was in this year
that Sir James Haslett who had held office for nine years passed away,
leaving a vacancy in North Belfast. The Labour Representation Council
(the leadership of the ILP) felt that the vacancy presented an opportunity
for Labour to seize an electoral seat. William Walker was chosen to run,
over a fellow Labour representative by the LRC because of his rhetorical
abilities. His ascendency was by no means sudden. He had been president
of the Trades Council after the departure of Sam Monro, a Conservative
Unionist, and had been the de facto leader of the socialist wing of the
ILP during Monro's term. The previous year, Walker had taken seat in Duncairn
ward in North belfast to solidify his position in the region. His candidacy
was then supported by the Irish Trade Unions Council as well as the Dublin
and Belfast branches. His solid backing by the Labour hierarchy and his
funding by the LRC seemed to indicate that his candidacy would be in a
good position to capture North Belfast's working class constituency. The
economic conditions of the time tended to support this idea. The area
had witnessed an economic recession in the years of 1904 and 1905 with
unemployment in some industries reaching as high as 19%. The position
of the TUC and its members had been seen as that of protector of local
jobs following its lead of a 1904 demonstration against the contracting
of the local tramway system to outside firms. The working class constituency
was assumed to be quite large given the presence of both of Belfast's
largest shipbuilding yards in the district (Harland and Wolff, and Workman
Clark and Company). The economic indicators seemed to further suggest
that working class support would lie with Walker. Politically, he seemed
a good match for his opponent, the Conservative Lord Mayor Sir Daniel
Dixon, a staunch conservative, who had been opposed by Liberal Unionists,
and criticized by Protestant press, particularly the The Irish Protestant.
Furthermore, his alignment, although not overt, with the IOO should have
further strengthened his ties with the Protestant workers while not alienating
their Catholic counterparts. However, it was this sectarian policy which
was to cost him his candidacy.

Walker's district of North Belfast was relatively Protestant having a
Catholic minority of approximately 12%. This was half the city-wide average
of 24% and would seem to make North Belfast a district suited for an independent
Protestant Candidate. Choosing to run his campaign on labour issues alone
(as specified by the LRC and TUC charters), he attempted to avoid questions
of religion and Home Rule policy. Here Ramsay McDonald, Walker's election
agent, offers a sample of the political deflection of religious issues
here:

Catholics and Protestants, though not agreeing on certain grounds, should
agree on others when it was a question of the Workman's Compensation Act,
the amendment of the Factories Act, and the Old Age Pension scheme.
Walker's intention to fight his opponent solely on labour issues left
him open to attacks by his opponent on the sectarian issue. With consistent
attempts to deflect religious questions, he made is position on the Home
Rule problem questionable in the minds of Protestant voters. His opponent
successfully used his attempts to distance himself from the Home Rule
problem by attacking his willingness to maintain the Union. Such ploys
were exemplified by Dixon's attacks on McDonald, who, he had claimed,
was a Catholic sympathizer and a Home Ruler. Many such attacks were ignored
or deflected by campaign officials, and Walker himself. His response to
attacks on McDonald were to change the focus of discussion and target
a labour concern or attack Unionism or some combination of the two. This
tactic is illustrated here, where he responds to a circulated placard
portraying McDonald as a Home Ruler by attacking Unionism:
The miners of Durham, Staffordshire, Wales and Ayrshire did not understand
Irish politics, did not understand the difference between Unionism and
Nationalism ... The miner's sole aim was to reduce his hours of labour...
For twelve years the miners' Eight Hour Bill had been before Parliament
and with the exception of Mr. Sloan (Cheers), every Unionist in Ireland
had voted against it. ... the party that was opposing Home Rule was voting
against their material wants in the House of Commons.
Even this could not have eroded his support among the Protestant electorate
to such a degree as to cost him a victory. As effective as such attacks
were, they serve to illustrate Dixon's weakness on issues of labour, since
Dixon likewise, had attempted to refocus Walker's attacks upon his support
for labour issues such as the outside contracting of the local tramway
system, onto the sectarian question.
The situation would thus appear to be a question of importance between
two issues: labour and religion. Given the economic conditions and the
seemingly dead status of Home Rule (although it was still an ever present
threat), labour issues would logically have taken the forefront. Although
most historian have concurred on this issue to some degree, their views
of the relative strength of labour concerns varies widely. Clarkson suggests
that labour issues were ``the very incarnation of capitalist industrialism
in its most nakedly brutal form'' and argues that Dixon, representing
capitalist interests used Walker's vagueness on the Home Rule question
to discredit him, thus arguing Walker's loss on a class basis influenced
by sectarian concerns. Patterson and Boyle have attempted to show the
importance of Protestant doubt as to the Walker's stance on religious
problems. Although neither side is quick to oppose the other's argument,
there is a clear disagreement as to the nature of Walker's defeat. The
arguments offered by both sides on the matter are compelling but fail
to emphasize internal divisions in labour itself. Patterson recognizes
that Walker's nomination for election in North Belfast was not without
challenge from within his own party. In fact, his nomination had come
only after the ILP nomination vote ended with a tie between himself and
Robert Gageby, a Conservative trade unionist who had been closely associated
with the old guard of the BTUC leadership. The final decision to chose
Walker, was based upon his abilities of rhetoric, and his higher viability
as a candidate. His less than smooth nomination process illustrates the
underlying problem, of transition between the newer socialists and the
more traditional conservatives within the Labour hierarchy.

Walker's campaign was to end in September, in a narrow defeat, with Walker
losing by 474 votes. But this loss was not to come before the candidate
was to make a tactical error that would swing a significant portion of
the estimated 1,000 Catholic voters away from Labour. Some months before
the election proper, the Belfast Protestant Association had pressured
both candidates to answer a questionnaire to determine their resolve to
uphold Protestant policy in Parliament. Dixon had refused to cooperate
until Walker answered, on the grounds, that his ``Protestantism'' was
not in doubt. Walker, after attempting to evade the survey, was cornered
by the BPA's secretary a week before the election, and without consultation
from his election committee answered the survey. His replies were subsequently
printed in Protestant and Unionist papers throughout the city, resulting
in internal disapproval from his election councillors. Dixon's campaign,
upon seeing Walker's replies, declined to answer the survey, and instead,
circulated flyers on election day containing their own version of the
survey. Walker's replies, although satisfactory to Protestant organizations,
were clearly indicative of his bigotry towards Catholics. One question
asked: ``Will you, in all things, place the interests of Protestantism
before those of the political party to which you are attached?'', Walkers
response was, although somewhat evasive, a clear sign of his aversion
to Catholicism: `` Protestantism means protesting superstition, hence
true Protestantism is synonymous with labour''. He had identified labour
as equivalent to Protestantism and, furthermore, the remaining replies
illustrated an attitude that was not only Anti-Nationalist, but also blatantly
Anti-Catholic.

It is generally accepted that this critical error was the cause of his
loss in 1905. Joseph Devlin, publisher of the Northern Star, a Labour
newspaper, and, later, West Belfast MP, described the event as follows:

Mr. Walker might have counted on the Nationalist vote had he been a genuine
labour candidate, professing merely Unionist proclivities, for, as between
two Unionists the Nationalist Party ever supports the more tolerant and
progressive of the two, especially if he happens to be a Labour candidate.
But Mr. Walker showed himself to be not only a violent Unionist, but a
rabid bigot to boot.
In a word, Sir Daniel Dixon played his cards admirably, completely outwitting
the Labour nominee. He refused to be badgered into signing the blasphemous
declaration consisting of a series of questions put to him by the Belfast
Protestant Association of bigoted guttersnipes.

In the following year, Walker's potential condemnation by his own ILP
and the British and Irish trade councils was narrowly averted despite
dissension from within the his own ranks. The primary reason being that
he seemed a viable candidate for the regular elections in 1906 of which
he was to make substantial headway, gaining a larger percentage of the
electorate, but again losing to Dixon. The 1906 election year would be
the last in which Walker would make any such gains, subsequent elections
are beyond the scope of this paper, but suffice it to say that although
representatives of labour interests were to win election in the Western
and Southern districts, they did not run on behalf of the Labour party
alone. These candidates including Tom Sloan, and Joseph Devlin, had openly
declared themselves to be Unionist and Nationalist respectively, and endorsed
by Labour in subsequent elections. Although the 1906 election did represent
the height of Labour's political presence, it would also be the beginning
of Labour's retreat from Ulster politics into a more revolutionary posture.
The overwhelming burden of sectarian cleavages was to bring an unavoidable
end of Labour's appeal to the partitioned electorate. Many historians
tend to agree with McDonald who argued for a complete removal of Labour
candidates from the sectarian issue. His argument was put forth in this
manner:
My own feelings always have been that the business [the election] was
muddled from beginning to end. I was never more sick of an election than
that at North Belfast and then the religious replies coming at the end
of it knocked everything out for me. I am afraid that those answers of
his [Walker] will make it impossible for Walker to win the constituency.
However, this policy would be an unlikely panacea. A campaign of ambivalence
towards the religious problem would likely have bred suspicion on the
part of voters, which may have evolved into discontent. Furthermore, even
if Walker were elected in 1905, his reelection in the years of crisis
directly preceding the first World War would likely have forced him to
align with either the Nationalists or the Unionists.
This argument is supported by the elections of 1906 and the more radical
activities of the years that were to follow. In retrospect, the activities
of leading Irish socialists can be seen as an indirect consequence of
Walker's earlier push in Labour Party politics. Leaders such as Larkin
and Connolly represented a fundamental shift that was to result in the
creation of the Labour-Nationalist alliance. The shift had resulted from
the reestablishment of Unionism as a coherent force. Labour problems had
become more and more severe as firms began to combine bargaining power
in labour disputes combating the trade union's traditional sympathy strikes,
and collective bargaining powers. The result of these two changes was
a labour movement that was to become militant and radical in tone, and
was to forego traditional Parliamentary avenues to pursue political change.
The roots of both changes lie in the tremendous threat Labour politics
had presented to the traditional parties as illustrated in the 1905 and
1906 elections. Walker's campaigns, although unsuccessful, acted in tandem
with forces from the IOO, and Nationalist powers. This was evidenced in
the height of Labour's success during the 1906 Parliamentary elections
in which it had placed three candidates for election, as, what was billed
at the time, ``The Three-Leaved Shamrock''. But by this time, it had become
apparent that the IOO was no longer expanding, and Unionist forces had
begun to adopt many of the IOO's policies in regards to Protestant issues.
The retrieval operation, as mounted by the Conservative-Liberal alliance
would eventually bring back the IOO's members. The revitalization of Conservatives,
and the increasing marginalization of Labour concerns due to the reemergence
of the Home Rule question were to act in tandem, creating an impenetrable
barrier for Labour Party politics in subsequent years as illustrated here:

In their endeavor to keep the allegiance of the Protestant masses, the
Ulster businessmen had no need to be afraid of Devlin and Redmond. Their
real antagonists were Larkin and Connolly.
The reference of Redmond and Devlin as a lesser threat to the upper and
middle classes, suggests the mobilization of labour leaders, like Larkin
becoming a their major opponents. So, although the movement towards Labour
politics was brief and underdeveloped, its limited successes did act to
assure Ulster politics of a movement towards its inevitable revolutionary
stance in the pre-war era. Its repercussion can still be heard today in
the partition of the Irish state and the militant political environment
that has evolved from these first movements and their impending consequences.